Headlines

The Government has been urged to make temporary changes to the insolvency laws to prevent businesses unable to meet debts due to the coronavirus from going into bankruptcy, The Irish Times reported. Dublin-based legal firm Philip Lee said certain aspects of the regulations here needed to be “dialled down” to enable companies trade through the current crisis. In particular, it called for the penalties for trading while insolvent to be temporarily lifted.

The World Bank is seeing “a huge willingness” on the part of official bilateral creditors to suspend debt payments by the world’s poorest countries so they can focus on fighting the coronavirus pandemic, a top Bank official said on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. World Bank Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg said the Group of 20 major economies and the Group of Seven (G7) had been largely supportive of a call by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for a temporary halt in debt payments. “Everybody understands that we need to help the poorest countries.

Australia’s jobless rate will almost double this quarter, the nation’s Treasury estimated, as the shutdown of large swathes of the services industry upends the labor market, Bloomberg News reported. Unemployment will soar to 10% in the three months through June, from 5.1% in February, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Tuesday, citing department forecasts. Without the government’s subsidy to keep workers attached to their employers, it would reach about 15%, he said.

SoftBank Group Corp. forecast a record 1.35 trillion yen ($12.5 billion) operating loss for the fiscal year ended in March, a sign of how badly Masayoshi Son’s bets on technology startups have been battered in recent months, Bloomberg News reported. The Japanese company expects to record a 1.8 trillion yen loss from its Vision Fund and another 800 billion yen in losses from SoftBank’s own investments. It has written down the value of investments in companies, including office-rental startup WeWork and satellite operator OneWeb, which filed for bankruptcy last month.

Just when it seemed impossible to do more, along came the coronavirus, spurring the Bank of Japan to double-down on its already massive market operations, Bloomberg News reported. The BOJ’s presence is now felt in virtually every corner of Japan’s financial markets and its actions continue to shape global money flows.

Cash-strapped Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd entered a trading halt on Tuesday, citing ongoing discussions involving financial assistance and restructuring alternatives to help it weather the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported. The airline, which had requested A$1.4 billion ($895 million) of loans from the Australian government, said the trading halt on its shares and unsecured notes would remain in place either until an announcement by the company or two trading days, whichever was earlier.

Brazilian businesses, desperate for government aid to weather the pandemic, aren’t getting much help from a state lender that used to shell out more than the World Bank, Bloomberg News reported. In past crises, state development bank BNDES would have been quick to flood the market, swelling its loan books by 30% a year to keep the economy afloat. Now, the bank’s top executive -- tasked with dramatically scaling back the state’s role -- has to navigate a world where governments are suddenly turning on the fiscal taps like never before.

NMC Health’s administrators have sought to reassure staff that the scandal-ridden hospital operator will still be able to help the United Arab Emirates battle the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. As the largest private healthcare provider in the UAE, NMC has an important role in preparing the Gulf state to cope with the outbreak, which has already claimed 22 lives from about 4,100 cases.

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed 51 Japanese companies into bankruptcy with a spike in new cases seen in April, Tokyo Shoko Research said on Friday, underscoring the toll the health crisis is taking on the world’s third-largest economy, Reuters reported. The bankruptcies were mostly in the hotel and restaurant industries such as hot spring hotel operator Fujimi-so in Aichi, central Japan, though they were spreading to small retailers and food producers reliant on inbound tourism, the credit research firm said in a report.

Realtors’ body Naredco on Thursday demanded a stimulus package of at least USD 200 billion to revive the Indian economy from the adverse impact of COVID-19 as well as suspension of insolvency law provisions for six months to prevent companies from becoming bankrput and acquired by foreign entities, The Financial Express reported.